


made with love, made with love

by ashellthatsings



Category: Runaways (Comics), Runaways (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 23:38:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14681880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashellthatsings/pseuds/ashellthatsings
Summary: Chase's birthday rolls around, and he realizes a few things.





	made with love, made with love

What he missed most about Brentwood wasn’t his house, in fact, Chase would have been glad to never see that hell again. Nor was it the school, or the lacrosse team, or anything of that kind. It’s the time that he missed, or at least, the illusion of it. He was a junior, he had had time to think about his future, and what college he wanted to go to, and what he wanted to do with his life-

He had looked at life as a series of years, years that he was guaranteed with health and money.

He should have died six months ago. It was a fluke that they could stand up to Jonah, a fluke that they managed to evade capture for so long. That they continued to evade capture.

He got morbid when it was his turn to be on watch, he thought to himself, as he took a sip of his vending machine coffee. Nothing like Timely. For that matter, nothing like any sort of palatable coffee he’d ever tasted, but that could be his elitism talking.

Despite a combined net worth between the six of them of approximately five hundred dollars scraped together from Alex’s mystery benefactor, the lockbox they’d found in the Gibborim van, and a few afternoons of work on a nearby farm he’d managed before they had to keep moving, Chase Stein remained Chase Stein, the boy who’d had a personal espresso machine since the age of ten.

He glanced at his watch, (not the nice one his mother’d given him for Christmas two years ago, that was long sold) and saw the cheap LED screen tick to 11:58. Almost tomorrow.  Almost his birthday.

Eighteen.

He cracked his back and stretched his neck, the four hours of sitting silent and still wearing on his joints. He’d planned to leave the house at eighteen. Move out, tell Victor Stein to shove his abuse up his own ass, all the things a battered kid dreams about when left alone. He didn’t plan this.

If he had told sixteen year old Chase that he’d be regularly sleeping next to his childhood crush and living out of a van with three literal superheroes and a dinosaur, his past self would have asked if he was on LSD.

Chase ran his free hand through his hair. It had gotten long, both as a disguise and an acknowledgement of the change in situation. He’d had to start borrowing hair ties from Karolina and Nico to pull it up when he was working on the van or hauling crates from barn to barn. Alex had mocked it, calling it a man bun, until Gert started loudly decrying the unnecessary genderization of different hairstyles.

God. Gert.

Still as vibrant as ever, even with the purple fading from her hair, and her roots getting longer, and the spark in her eyes dimming just a little with the persistent sleep deprivation.  Still so smart, so beautiful.

11:59.

He didn’t used to be the oldest. That was Amy’s thing, and he was glad to let her have it, but when she died he got that mantle without asking for it. And quick as anything he was not only the oldest in the group but Molly’s older brother, Karolina’s confidant, Nico’s backup, Alex’s mechanic, Gert’s-  
Still didn’t know what he was to Gert.

He was her pillow sometimes when she’d curl closer to him in her sleep, her practice dummy for retaining her feminist defense skills, her secondary dinosaur babysitter-

Sometimes, when the panic would grab her harder than usual, she’d grip his arm tightly, where no one else could see. Every time, he’d freeze, and ever so carefully put a hand on hers, and rub his thumb back and forth over her fingers until the moment passed and she’d let go of his arm.

After that, she wouldn’t look at him directly for a while, like acknowledging the moment of weakness would make it happen again.  
He was the only one who saw the panic in her eyes that afternoon when they met Old Lace. He was the only one who saw it return day after day when their money dwindled below fifty dollars, or when Molly had a fever, or when Alex took a while to return from meeting whoever was helping him.  
To everyone else, she was brash, practical Gert.

12:00. Midnight.

He was an adult. Officially.

And in his first act as an adult, he brushed his hair out of his face, and downed the rest of the terrible, now mostly cold, coffee. Chase Stein, grown adult. That would take getting used to.

Right when he started to ponder that, and envision what sort of hell might the news start making up to explain their continued disappearance, he heard a rustle come from the makeshift tents behind him, and twisted to see who it was.

Gert. In his jacket.

“You should sleep. I’m good out here,” he said quietly as he turned back around. She sat beside him almost silently, and held a small, newspaper wrapped package out to him.

“Gert, you shouldn’t have-“ he started, and she shook her head.

“Happy birthday,” she replied, and tucked her hair behind her ear self consciously, as he stared at her for a full minute before smiling and turning to the package.

Inside, he found three small scrunchies, made out of a black material he thought he recognized-

The dress. The dress he’d- The dress she’d worn when- The dress she’d kept, stuffed in a glove compartment in the van she thought he didn’t know about, but he did-

He looked up at her.

“I figured Nico and Karo would want their ponytail holders back, so-“ she said, and then trailed off at the look in his eyes. In hers he saw a glint of panic, and the slightest amount of hope.

“Thank you,” he said, voice crack betraying his feigned nonchalance at the sight of the dress fabric.

“Yeah. Well. It really was a gift for the rest of us, so we don’t have to share the hair ties, but-“

With a move that felt so fast to her and so slow to him, he pressed a kiss to her cheek, and then pulled back to look in her eyes.

“Thank you,” he said again, and Gert met his eyes, and squeezed his hand.

“No problem,” she said, and she leaned against his shoulder ever so slightly.

When she did, Chase was hit with the sudden realization that he’d run forever, live day to day forever, do whatever it meant to keep Gert by his side.

“I love you,” he said softly, feeling like it was both too early and eighteen years too late to tell her. He could almost feel her heart stutter for a moment, and could almost hear the thoughts running through her head about whether he meant it, or if he would have meant it had their world not gone to hell.

“I know,” she replied, just as softly, barely breathing it.

“I’m sorry. For everything.”

That one took another moment, but he couldn’t enter another year with the shame of leaving still on him, he had to lay down the burdens his past self had given him so he could take up hers without looking back.

“I know,” she said, and he thought that would be the end of it, but then she continued. “I’m sorry too.”

And feeling lighter by the second, he rubbed his thumb over her fingers, and smiled back at her when she smiled at him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> listen you guys comics canon Chase has long hair now and I LOVE IT 
> 
> title from Joanna Newsom's "Sawdust and Diamonds."


End file.
